Deep Horizon Oil Spill
2010
A hole in the bottom of the innocent sea
A hole in the bucket 5,000 feet deep
The gulf lies in its casket
hemorrhaging through the blasting blowhole
The damage we’ve let them do in the pursuit of human empowerment
a new mythology, fresh definitions of sacrilege
The roots of this disaster are intensely personal
if we live at all, we live in collusion
Spectators — entertained and isolated
terrified, paralyzed and lied to
Everyday life is a disaster.
Oil woven like oxygen into every aspect of our lives
we were born into a world already wrapped in its web
but there’s another world
another web
beyond the imperial cartels, the tanks of capitalism
The liars in charge of information will say
that coexistence is for hippies, freaks and the blue N’avi of Pandora
Now, the Hopi are saying it’s their 7th prophesy
The Mayan calendar claims it too
The promised apocalypse, Al Quida, Satan
—everyone wants a piece of this one— Jesus is coming back
I say the mother is rising up
Predictions comin’ down like rain and
all the paradoxes swim home to roost, covered in oil
The Midas Touch turned inside out and backwards
What will our bank accounts, insurance plans, job security mean
if the air is pestilence and the water affliction
and we, alone on this earth alive
We loved oil, over all and now we have it
over All
Killing and dying for this treasure, spilling and lying to ourselves and each other
all so we can package every bit of crap we buy in plastic disposable bags and
give them away for free
by the billions every day, every day, every day
The pursuit of our empowerment bursts, deep
a soundless roar under the bellowing sun
Our monster’s the belief that nature is a machine we can control
with our violent, sloppy ways to feed our violent, sloppy lifestyles
She is alive as we desecrate her, life giving but wrathful as Kali
Our monster making us mindful perhaps
of Relations in other lands we gift with toxic garbage
military operations, nuclear power, global warming
We hear the drones passing over, it’s over
we’re all prisoners now
Breathless before the ferocity we’ve unleashed
a natural karma
This wound in the bottom of the ocean is more than a broken machine
it’s a part of us
And we watch live-feed of the earth’s guts gushing
in real time, 24 hours a day
400 years after they declared the earth to be dead, she is coming alive
chaos theory unfolding before our eyes
butterfly wing makes a wind that trips the wire of synchronized cascading failures
even Boulder people on their path to yoga enlightenment feel a nudge
In this dark empire that learns where foreign countries are by bombing them
that learns about nature’s circulatory systems by poisoning them
This oil-slimed, war making, money blowing country —
god shed his grace on us?
We make our home in America’s 51st state
state of Denial, way closer than Hawaii ever was
Denial’s a river that hollows us out, leaks into every fissure
pressurized, keeps us mesmerized,
so we gotta fight to feel the orphaned feelings
feel the grief — it’s not paralyzing — my sadness lets me know I care.
And the media says there’s anger out there.
Where?
Look around — does outrage march past you any day of the week?
So many asleep
and so many targets.
Oh, Mother — Super size me for this task
clone me to heal the damage done
Who can look at the images of pelicans and seals and turtles
without tasting blood
Will we change now?
Hope is so close to denial that I don’t trust it anymore
but hope has 2 beautiful daughters
Anger and Courage
Will we change now, in love and rage
Can we stand in the fire, just burn
then Turn
for this earth that’s our Mother
for this sin of allowing the powerful to speak for us?
Pray for a benevolent force
a world-sized pair of Mama hands to come down and scoop us all up
like an internal rapture, not leaving this planet but re-entering it
Scoop us up in the mama’s love
and it would hurt
like yr armor peeling away bloody
like denial lasered out of us
like our skins being burnt away
and then you’d be free of disbelief and guilt
free to act responsibly —
Free!
Mama, hold us in your gargantuan safety
so we can let go
Power bowing to the revolution already happened in our hearts
It’s an illusion that money is wealth
wealth is our potential to change.
And we change.
Rise to the task and we change
ask forgiveness and we change
open our eyes, feel the wild lark of our hearts and we change
Or we change state.
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